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Upgrade my powerbook to a 250GB HD?

Mattym62

Mattym62

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 27, 2003
241
75
Palm Beach, FL
Hey Everybody,
I had a question about my hard drive. I have been searching and searching for info about the largest HD my powerbook G4 can handle. Here are my specs

12" powerbook G4 1.5ghz
1.25GB RAM
60GB HD
Running Leopard:apple:

So i have been looking at a Western Digital 250GB HD here : http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD2500BEVE/

What im concerned about is that people are saying that the powerbook will become slower. As of right now, my laptop has been running excellent with no problems. I would greatly appreciate any insight or information that you can offer!!

Thanks,
-Matt
 
Why would it get slower? The Scorpio is a 5400 RPM drive, which should be the same as your 60.

You can gain in speed 2 ways -- the areal density of the 250 GB drive is higher than the 60 -- so more bits of data pass under the heads with every revolution

And with a higher capacity, with 60 GB of data you will be using the outermost 1/4 of your platters, where the speed is best.

If your 60 GB is nearly full now, you're running on the inside tracks of the drive, which are slower. Drive performance can drop by half as you move from the outermost track to the innermost. It's geometry - the perimeter length of the inside track is shorter, so fewer bits can be read in one revolution.
 
awesome, thank you for the information. I am only using about 24.5gb of my current hard drive. However, I dont really want to wait untill im about empty to change it out. I also have a 160GB external HD that I have used to backup with Time Machine.
 
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